Video card question

**Mindkill** · 06-22-2009, 02:48 PM

I am in the market for a new video card and am having some trouble deciding. The two video cards I am looking at are the eVGA GTX 275 FTW and the GTX 280 SC. One of these two cards will be replacing my aging and not-made-anymore 8800GTS SSC 640MB edition from eVGA.

Both cards are under $300 (before tax, shipping, etc), so that puts them in my price range. But, I am not sure how important some aspects of the cards are. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two cards.

I noticed that the 275 card has a higher factory overclock by a hundred to two hunderd MHz in each category, but the 280 has a full 1GB of GDDR3 RAM and a 512bit memory interface as opposed to the 448bit memory interface of the 275.

What I would like to know is, how important are the clock speeds and memory interface? Is it worth the few extra dollars for the 275's massive factory OC, or should I spend less on less of an OC, but more RAM with a faster interface?

By the way, I will be buying a factory OC'd card, as I just don't have the patience or expertise to do the OC'ing myself. Not to mention, with the factory overclock, the card is completely covered by eVGA's awesome warranty.

Sheesh, I remember the good ole days, when it was easy to pick new hardware. *sigh*

**kin3** · 06-22-2009, 03:45 PM

I don't know any answers but you mentioned faster ram. I read somewhere that the seed of the ram didn't make that much difference. You might try this site
www.anandtech.com/ they have some nice write ups on various topics. For me I think I will go with ATI 9700 when I upgrade.

otherboard: EVGA 780i
Graphic Card: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512
Monitor: Dell 2407WFP-HC
DVD: Philips SPD6104P SCSI DVD
Sound: Creative X-FI Audio
Power Supply: Corsair TX750W
CPU: E8400
Memory: Patriot 4G 2Gx2
Hard Drive: 500G
Case: Antec P182
OS: Windows Vista Home Preium 64

**LpBronco** · 06-23-2009, 05:53 PM

Speed isn't as important as amount and now they are recommending at least a gig but look at the GTX260. Comes close and actually beats the 280 in some bench marks and almost has a gig.

Note: I'll be a sucker when the 300 series cards come out. They're talking about marks 9-15 times present marks. (I'll believe it when I see it.)

**Wookiie** · 06-24-2009, 03:23 AM

Hay MK if you go to http://hwbot.org you can do a side by side comp but ther both so close to each other its up to you.

**Mindkill** · 06-25-2009, 12:23 AM

Thanks for the help guys!

I did a little more research myself, along with the links you guys posted, and still couldn't really find which card would be best for me. I planned on talking with a few RL friends to get more opinions, but my current video card had other ideas.

Tonight, I was on the WaW server to get a game going, when all of a sudden, my screen filled up with red pixels in weird patterns. Then the game locked up. Then it gave me the dreaded BSoD. After a reboot, it seemed ok, so I hopped back in game and was greeted with the same thing. I tried rolling back my drivers, since I had just updated to the drivers released this month. No help. I even removed the stock heatsink and fan to clean the old thermal paste off and apply some Artic Silver. No joy. I went into the bios of my motherboard to completely bypass any drivers or DX stuff and noticed that the text was all goofy looking.. like a foriegn language. Meh.

So, my 8800GTS has finally died. RIP buddy.

I just placed an order at Newegg for my original choice of cards. The above linked GTX 275 FTW edition. Also paid extra for UPS' NextDay service, and even paid an extra $3 to Newegg to get rush processing. Total damage, out the door ended up being $308. I think I will incur a bit more cost as I love to get eVGA's higher end RMA and warranty protection. So, I will be MIA in the server until the new beast arrives. I do have access to a non-gaming computer so, I can still keep in touch on the website.

So, see ya all in a day or two.

**kin3** · 06-25-2009, 01:06 PM

We were wondering what happened to you.

I have an EVGA card and I have no complaints with them.

I will probably a new rig this fall/winter. Seem like a lot of things in the wind and maybe the middle of the road stuff will come down more.

I think you made a good choice, get back soon we miss you (like a sore toe...lol)